


Be All Our Sins Remember'd

by Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)



Category: The Tudors
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:47:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/pseuds/Sandrine%20Shaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He knows that her magic is nothing but wide blue eyes and full lips and pale ivory skin as flawless as a new sheet of parchment.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be All Our Sins Remember'd

When all is said and done and all they're waiting for is the executioner, Cromwell goes to see the Queen in the Tower. 

Silence descends when he steps into the cold, grey room, and her ladies-in-waiting scatter away with their eyes downcast. He briefly wonders whether it's sadness or fear that marks their demeanour, but then, he doesn't care enough to ponder it. He's not here for them; and the Queen strides towards him with her head up high and her eyes blazing topaz fire, as if this was the throne room instead of a prison.

He bows stiffly, formally. Prisoner, adulterer, witch – it doesn't matter; she's still his Queen and will be so until her head falls. He's ready to go through the motions, but it's her who disperses all pretence at protocol. 

"Ah, Mister Cromwell," she greets him, almost amused and utterly unsurprised to see him, as if she was expecting his visit. "Have you come to gloat? It appears that, after all, you have won."

For a moment, the bluntness of her words renders him speechless. He knows it takes him a moment too long to school his face into a careful mask of confusion. "I fear I don't understand, Madam."

"You and I both know that this is your doing." She says 'this' with no tremor in her voice, and yet he can't help but notice that she shies away from speaking out loud what it is, exactly: her imminent death. He tells himself that he owes her the truth, but mostly, he's just tired of prolonging the playing of cat and mouse games when the mouse is already in the trap.

"It is not, actually," he tells her, politeness giving way to matter-of-fact. "You have only yourself to blame."

"Why? Because I was a threat to your position? Because you were afraid that I would have the King dispose of you?" Anne sounds genuinely curious, as if she can't imagine what she has done to deserve being put to death. 

Cromwell feels a fresh spike of loathing for her. "Because you were entertaining men in your private chambers," he forces out between clenched teeth. It's not his reason for wanting her gone, of course; he really couldn't care less who she allowed access to her quarters or to her body. But his motives don't matter now, not in the grand scheme of things, and her infidelity made it altogether too easy to bring about her fall.

"You know as well as me that there is _no_ truth in any of these allegations!" Her protest is fierce and harsher than the wry humour of her previous words. For the first time, he thinks he hears a hint of anger in her voice.

"Do I?"

Even though he sees it coming, he fails to catch her wrist before her hand makes impact with his cheek, surprisingly strong for such a delicate person. The slap makes an ugly hollow sound that echoes from the stone walls. 

Cromwell lifts a hand to wipe at his mouth, not at all astonished when his fingers come away coated red. If he were a lesser man, he'd retaliate in kind, hit her until she's knocked off her feet and the defiance is gone from her eyes. It's tempting, almost, and he knows she expects as much, the way she's staring at him, proud, with her shoulders squared as if she's bracing herself for the blow.

He tells himself that this is the reason he holds back: because he likes to defy people's expectations, because he hates to be predictable, because he's not a violent man and he prefers to lash out with words instead of fists and swords. Surely, his reluctance to strike her has nothing to do with admiring that spark of pride in her that won't die even when she's imprisoned and sentenced to death, or with the fierce passion that tints her cheeks red. Lying is what he's good at, and he lies to himself as well as he lies to Kings and Lords.

"You will find that people are no more likely to believe your protestations of innocence if you hit them."

She laughs as if he made a joke, but the edges of her mouth are turned downwards and there's scorn in her voice when she speaks. "Whether or not you believe me is irrelevant to me, Mister Cromwell. I know that I never committed the sins of which they accuse me, and so does God. Your opinion doesn't matter to me. You are _nothing_. You think you have won, just because you've succeeded in poisoning the King against me, but don't celebrate this victory just yet."

She leans in, faux-whispering into his ear. "Soon the King will realise what a snake he nurtured in his breast, and your head will fall like mine."

He does slap her then, knocking her down with the force of the blow. Her dress crumples on the dirty floor, her cheek is red from the impact of his hand, and a strand of her hair has come loose, falling into her face. And she's laughing; she's still laughing that hollow, triumphant, hateful laughter. 

She's never been more beautiful.

This is his Queen.

This is the woman he desired from the first moment he laid eyes on her, the woman who drew him in as she drew in everyone, from kings to lowly stable boys; and despite the allegations of witchcraft, he knows that her magic is nothing but wide blue eyes and full lips and pale ivory skin as flawless as a new sheet of parchment.

This is the woman he helped bring to the chopping block.

And she deserved it. He knows she deserved it, because even now, when she's wretched and fallen from grace and too proud for a woman about to die, even now she makes him want her.

He reaches for her before he can stop himself, pulling her up, towards him, against him. His fingers dig harshly into the tender flesh of her bare upper arms. She'll have bruises tomorrow, he thinks, until he remembers that she'll be dead tomorrow, and his grip tightens. He must be hurting her, but she never protests, just lifts her chin and stares at him with defiance he could easily mistake for a challenge. Or maybe it really is a challenge, masked as defiance. With her, you never know. It's always a game within a game within another game, and this may well be her best. It will certainly be her last.

He bends his head and presses his mouth to hers in a punishing, plundering kiss. Her lips are as soft and pliant as they look, so different from her sharp tongue, and for just a second or two, she goes slack against him. Through layers of clothing, he can feel her heartbeat racing where her chest is pressed against his. But her surrender is only momentary, and suddenly she's returning the kiss with as much viciousness as he put into it.

This is high treason, he thinks. Sacrilege. Lunacy. Dangerous. 

Inevitable.

His hands are fumbling with the lacings of her dress, almost as if they're acting on their own volition. His mouth leaves a wet trail of kisses down her jaw, her neck, the swell of her breasts. She releases a soft gasp that he echoes when her small, blunt teeth bury themselves into his shoulder. She has his jacket off before he unlaced her stays, and he's not sure anymore if he's the conqueror or the seduced, if this was her idea or his, if he's winning this game or losing it. 

He's not sure he cares anymore, as long as he gets to have this. Just this moment, when he can have the Queen all to himself. Just this moment, with no politics, no intrigue, nothing between them but skin.

He pushes her against the wall, raising her up until her legs wrap around him, and he slides into her with one steady thrust. Her head is thrown back, her mouth open, her eyes shut, and the expression on her face takes his breath away. If she looked like this for Henry – and Cromwell is not arrogant and foolish enough to believe that he could satisfy Anne more than the King did – if she looked like this for Henry, then Cromwell can't understand how the King could ever abandon her.

Her nails dig into his back, and he retaliates by biting her neck. The sound that leaves her lips is halfway between a chuckle and a moan. His lips seek hers and when they find them, the kiss is nothing like the first. It's deep and rough and wet, but mostly it's _desperate_. 

Because she's going to die tomorrow and he made it happen and he would do the same thing again, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't regret that it had to end like this. 

Because, deep down, he knows she's right, knows that he'll lose the king's favour eventually and will follow her down. 

Because this, now, is the only time they have and he longs to possess her again and again even though he knows it's impossible.

She screams a broken, breathless cry and tightens around him, her nails clawing painfully at him and her heels digging into the back of his legs. As he spills inside her, he mouths her name into the soft, bruised skin on her throat where he bit her before. 

For what feels at once like an eternity and the fraction of a second, they stay like this, half-collapsed against the wall, their heavy breathing mingling.

It's she who disentangles herself first, who pushes him away with the haughty authority of a queen, and reaches to gather her dress. He watches her for a moment before he turns to find his breeches. He wants to break the silence, but for once, he's all out of words. But so is she, it seems, because the silence remains, heavy and expectant.

He's only just finished dressing, straightening his jacket, when the sound of her laughter behind him sends an icy shiver down his spine. He spins around to glare at her, forcing the words out between clenched teeth. "If you think you can use—"

She looks just as immaculate as ever, only the flush on her cheeks betraying what she'd just been up to, and she airily waves his objections away before he even has a chance to voice them. 

"Don't be ridiculous. Who would believe me now? But don't you think it is funny? I have never, in all my marriage to the King, as much as entertained the thought of another man like this. And here I am, imprisoned and sentenced and waiting for my execution, and now I commit the crimes I've been innocently accused of before." 

Her laughter is high and silvery, but there's bitterness in it rather than mirth, and he doesn't feel like joining in, his stomach settling uncomfortably.

It is one thing to plant the seed of doubt in the King, as long as he thought that the allegations against her had even the chance of being true. But she has no reason to lie about her innocence now, not to him, not after –

He looks away, unwilling to meet her gaze. There's bile in his throat, sharp and bitter, and he swallows and swallows until he finds his voice again. He has to remind himself of his reasons for wanting her gone and of the fact that he'd do it all again before he can bear to look at her.

"Madam," he says, taking a bow. "I do regret that it has come to this."

Her smile is brittle, barely a smile at all. "Will that be all then, Mister Cromwell?" 

He knows a dismissal when he hears one, just as he knows that there's no forgiveness to be found for him here. 

There's nothing to say that hasn't been said or wouldn't be a lie, and they're past the lies now. So he leaves wordlessly. A final bow, and then he turns and walks out, the heavy door falling shut after him. 

He looks back, just once.

They tell him that she dies a Queen, her head held high and no tears in her eyes. He expected no less from her, even though he cannot share her serenity, cannot in fact bring himself to watch her execution. When she kneels down to meet her fate, he's already on his knees himself, praying for an absolution he knows he doesn't deserve and won't find.

As long as Cromwell lives, he will never breathe a word about what came to pass between him and the Queen that day in her rooms in the Tower. But every time Wyatt looks at him, it's as if he sees right through him – as if he somehow _knows_. 

Cromwell doesn't fail to see the irony that Wyatt and he, of all people, would be the ones to walk away from this when other men, innocent men, have died for having carnal knowledge of the Queen. They live, but they pay their price every day.

End.


End file.
